The Narrator in the Wreckage
by HouseKeeper13
Summary: When a body is found in the wreckage from a construction site demolition, Brennan and Booth must find the killer and confront their feelings for each other. Told from the victim's perspective. B/B
1. Chapter One

The Narrator in the Wreckage

_Chapter One_

**Disclaimer: **I am the proud owner of my very own skeleton complete with all the appropriate bones, yet I regret to say I do not own _Bones_.

**Author's Note: **First of all, the BB story is the current leader in the poll on my profile, so voters, here you go! Secondly, I know there are a bunch of Booth/Bones fics out there, and many are simply mind-blowing. However, I felt I had to throw my hat in the ring, even though it's been done so many times. The problem then became how to write a BB story in a way that was new and different. The answer: tell the story from a victim's eyes! In case anyone is interested in where I got the idea for the murder, it's based off of a screenplay I wrote. Please drop a review.

Chapter One

The construction team's foreman is walking around the site, observing the work of the day, ready to leave, when suddenly he spots it. He puts down his coffee cup and starts to walk slowly—cautiously, up the pile of what was once part of a house before it was leveled by the explosion. Realizing fully what he sees for the first time, he begins to advance quicker, almost running toward it. He stops when he gets to it, fighting the urge to vomit as he looks upon it. The "it" he realizes, is my charred skull. Panicked, he pulls out his cell phone and calls 911.

There are people on the site within an hour, some roping the area off, some setting up equipment, others questioning the construction workers, but no one comes toward me. I realize they must be waiting for someone, but don't fully understand who until I see Dr. Temperance Brennan and some man get out of a black car. I recognize her from the cover of her books—she's supposed to be the best there is at identifying the remains of victims when no one else can. While she gets her suit and equipment out, she looks around, and asks the man where "Cam" is. He tells Dr. Brennan that she took some time off to reconnect with her newly adopted daughter. Dr. Brennan simply nods briskly, and walks towards where the agents are pointing to my body. She's abrasive and rude as she passes various agents working the scene, and gives her actions no second thought as she advances towards my remains. My admiration for her suddenly plummets as I realize she is quite stuck-up and a bit of a bitch. The man she came with lags behind, apologizing to each of the agents on her behalf. He's charming and polite, and I can't see for a moment why he sticks around with her. When he finally arrives at the mound where I am kept, she tells him not to contaminate any of "the victim's" remains, and opens her kit to start uncovering my body. She soon discovers the task is a difficult one as even my eyes bulge and my stomach churns upon seeing what has become of my body.

What use to be me is charred and burned, and I imagine it smells awful. I gasp in horror when I see that my body isn't still attached to itself. In fact, Dr. Brennan starts spouting facts to the man she calls "Booth" telling him that my body became dismembered from the combination of the explosion from the detonation and the bulldozers pushing the remains of the leveled building into piles. She looks around the base of my vertebral column under what would have been my jaw and chin, and upon further inspection tells Booth there are strands of rope embedded in what little burnt flesh I have left. Booth lowers his head in my memory, saying a silent prayer, and asks Bones what I already know as being true. He asks her if had been hung with rope by my neck. She says yes, and her tone is far more somber than I anticipated. He then swallows hard and asks her if I committed suicide. She says she'll have to sift through the debris to re-assemble my skeleton before she draws a conclusion, but it certainly seems that way. My mind races. _Suicide? _They need to know the truth! What happened to me was not by my own doing. Booth, more to himself than anyone says that he isn't looking forward to telling "the victim's" family. I want to cry and scream, but neither seem rational or productive at the moment. My parent's can't think I killed myself. I know they'd only blame themselves. It's up to Booth and Dr. Brennan now to uncover the truth, and to unravel the story I can no longer tell. I only hope they can manage it.

**B********NES B********NES B********NES**

The hours pass, and I watch while Dr. Brennan goes through mound after mound and Booth stays with her. He's no real help, and they both know it, yet he stays by her side, offering to fetch her coffee, and ready to help with any heavy lifting that might be obstructing her access to my bone fragments. He stays quiet to let her work and fully concentrate, until Dr. Brennan periodically reminds him that he doesn't need to stay with her, that she could be doing this alone, and he could be getting some sleep. She reminds him that his men are all doing their jobs and he can't start actually working the case too hard until they get a positive identification. He tells her they're partners, and if she's staying, he's staying, but there's something more to it than that. Even they've embraced it on some level, although I'm not sure they fully understand it. Booth wants to be there with her, to protect her, and it's motivated by more than their partnership.

Eventually, Dr. Brennan approaches the last mound. I'm impressed at the care she puts toward handling and unearthing my bones. She seems so cold and distant, so detached from my plight, yet she handles me with respect—as if I am still a real person to her, a person she treats with more dignity than any living person. Booth looks on, wonderment in his eyes as he watches her work, and something else I can't identify. She goes slowly and with caution, yet her moves are deliberate and confident, and my heart aches to think of how much death she must surround herself with every day. After what seems like forever, Brennan stands up for the first time and turns to face Booth. She tells him she's finished collecting all the bone fragments available, and he approaches her, offering her his jacket for protection against the chilled air around them. Accepting it, she shrugs herself into it and says she wishes to bring the remains to the Jeffersonian for reconstruction. She asks Booth to secure the location until Hodgins can arrive to collect samples, and he barks the commands to the other agents, without so much as questioning her motives. He trusts her implicitly, and without even having to ask, she tells him her prognosis, a courtesy I feel sure she wouldn't supply just anyone with.

"Booth," she says. "The victim's hands are gone."

Booth blinks. He has to stop himself from asking if she's sure, if she missed them, but even he realizes that Brennan wouldn't make a mistake like that. He holds his breath without even knowing it, waiting for the news he has been praying for all night.

"I don't think the victim committed suicide, Booth. I think someone was trying to cover up a murder."

Booth closes his eyes, both relieved and disturbed simultaneously. Then he puts his arm around Dr. Brennan, ushering her towards the car, despite her protests, and drives her to her home, so she can get some sleep before they reconvene tomorrow to catch a murderer, each doing their best to ignore their pounding hearts and the sparks that shoot through their bodies at the others' touch.

**Author's Note: **So this is a very short chapter, but think of it as the teaser before the opening credits, just establishing the crime. The next ones will be longer.


	2. Chapter Two

The Narrator in the Wreckage

_Chapter Two_

**Author's Note: **Thank you very much to everyone who took the time to review. I do appreciate it very much, and I hope you are all satisfied with this next chapter. Also, I'm sure you may have noticed by now that I don't know anything about forensics, so please just let's employ some suspension of disbelief about the medical facts that I'll attempt to just skate over.

Chapter Two

The next day at the Jeffersonian, Dr. Brennan arrives early. Hardly anyone has shown up yet, save a few security guards whom I assume are left over from the night before. Armed with only a single cup of coffee, she attempts to reassemble my body based on the hundreds of tiny bone fragments. I just assumed when I watched her work, I'd be able to know my own bones, to recognize them. After all, they were who I was, quite literally at the core of my existence. Now, the notion seems juvenile and romantic, and I'm more impressed with Brennan's ability to distinguish one bone from another. To me, they all look the same—tiny reminders of who I once was. A part of me doubts her ability to truly discern the identical pieces, yet she continues to amaze me as she begins to reconstruct my skeleton on a table before my eyes.

Booth comes a couple hours after she begins. He must have anticipated Brennan coming in early to work. He stands in the doorway, silent, not wishing to distract her. She's far too consumed in her work to notice him, until eventually she pauses, seemingly stumped by a shard of bone. Booth then announces himself, patiently asking if she has an ID on my skeleton. He calls her "Bones", and I suspect that if anyone other than Booth had tried to call her that, she would have hit them. Something tells me that she knows how to fight back. But something about him allows her to open up, however slightly, and she embraces the name as a term of endearment.

She gives him a look that he recognizes immediately and informs her he "knows the drill" and will continue to wait outside until she finishes the reconstruction. Apparently, "Bones" doesn't make assumptions—on the one hand I'm glad, for it shows her looking totally unbiased on the case, determined not to miss anything, but at the same time, I will her to hurry up—eager to see the person who did this to me see justice. Eventually, as the hours pass, Booth greets others who amble into the Jeffersonian and towards the room, checking on Brennan's progress. They don't enter the actual room, merely peer around Booth's form, making small talk in hushed voices and asking for details about the case. They ask him the approximate time Brennan will be finished, and he tells them—based on no information other than his knowledge of his partner and her habits. Satisfied, they return to their offices, each waiting to stake a claim on my remains. Another man approaches Booth, the silent guardian of Brennan's privacy, whom Booth acknowledges as "Hodgins". Booth tells him that Bones needs him to travel to the demolition site where they found my body and search for particulates throughout the rubble. He tells Hodgins that there was too much to bring to the Jeffersonian, but the piles remained in tact and undisturbed save Brennan's scavenging of my bones. With a short debriefing of what little they know of my plight, Booth gives Hodgins directions to the site, and he goes to his office to gather his equipment and leaves.

It amazes me how distant these people are. I get the feeling they have been co-workers for quite some time, and yet they each refer to each other by last names. Still, they exclude the title "Dr." so I suppose there must be more at play than I previously assumed. Only the women "Angela" and the previously alluded to "Cam" are distinguished by first names. It touches me that this Cam would return to work so quickly for my case when I had gathered the impression she had recently been connected with some daughter. I don't know the actual events of this reunion, but I can only assume perhaps she walked out on a daughter or perhaps put her up for adoption. The dynamics at play in that relationship fascinate me, as all relationships fascinate me, and I smile bitterly, realizing how much easier it will be for me now to observe the human race.

Finally, Brennan pops her head out of the room, and I see with amazement that I have been reassembled. Some of the bones are still charred while others seem to be moderately clean. Brennan explains to Booth that once Hodgins returns he can check my remaining flesh for particulates. I look just as the skeletons in biology had looked, and I begin to wonder what the story behind that person was. I look again and flinch when I see blank space where my hands would go, and I fight back tears of bitterness and hatred when I think of where they are. One by one, Angela and Cam reappear in the doorway, and I marvel at how accurate Booth's estimation of Brennan's completion time was. With everyone assembled, Brennan begins to relay her observations of the skeleton—the facts of my life, as slowly, fragments of my identity are restored to me, and my story is heard through my bones, when my mouth can no longer tell it.

She starts by informing the room that I was female. And with just that little bit of information I become a person to the doctor, no longer "the victim", but a real person. Brennan refers to me as she, as she continues to tell the others the basic facts of my life. She approximates my age to be in my late teens—possibly 17. I wish I could tell her that I was still 16 for a couple more weeks, but I have to trust her and Booth to figure that much out later when they discover who I was to the rest of the world, for although Dr. Brennan gathered a lot of information about me, not even she can read my name from the bones. She is however, able to discern that I was Caucasian, approximately 5'10" based on the perceived minimal bone shrinkage from the heat of the explosion, and weighed 140 pounds. She says the wear on my knees and back is great, and she tells the group I was an athlete. She then allows Cam and Angela access to my remains to do their work, while Booth runs off to check the missing person's database to check and see if the information they have will identify me. I wish I could tell him that he won't find anything, but he finds it out on his own. Besides the person who did this to me: no one even knows I'm gone.

I continually check in on my parents. They're on a cruise now. It took a lot of convincing on my part to convince them to go on the second honeymoon in the first place, but they deserved it so much and hardly ever got time away together. I don't regret sending them, although I hate knowing what they will have to come home to. I hate the idea of them wondering where I am, panicked that I'm not there to greet them, probably hurt that I didn't remember or didn't care, although they really should know better. I hate that they'll have to wonder, lost and confused where I am, and as their panic grows, they'll reach out to others for help, all unable to answer their questions of the location of their only daughter. I begin to cry, wishing I could comfort them, and let them know everything will be okay for them, even though I suspect it won't be. Still, they have their time of bliss now, on the cruise together having fun, a temporary reprieve from the reality that awaits them back home. For the first time, I am glad that they're old fashioned technophobes, who never bothered to buy a cell phone. This way, they won't have to worry when I don't answer their calls. I can't stop the tears that fall, not for my own pain, but for the pain and confusion of my family, their only daughter ripped from them. I wish I could tell them what happened, and I wish I could make the person who did this to me suffer, but for now, I can only watch, stuck in some limbo, without even a name to identify me, as a team of the country's brightest minds try and discern what happened to me, and bring justice to me and my family.

**Author's Note: **Thank you again for everyone who reviewed the previous chapter, and for those of you who marked this as a story alert. I hope everyone continues to enjoy the story. I will be attempting to update at least once a week.


	3. Chapter Three

The Narrator in the Wreckage

Chapter Three

**Author's Note: **I won't bore you with some tragic story about why I couldn't update. Instead I'll tell you that I just didn't feel like writing, I'll apologize and say I'll try to do better next time.

Chapter Three

I watch as the team disperses, without a word of instruction or explanation. It seems odd to me to find a workplace where there seems no established hierarchy, although I'm sure there is one. These people don't see each other as subordinates or superiors, and not even as co-workers. They are equals, and more importantly—friends, a machine so well oiled, it runs without interference or problem. Each of the doctors walks with purpose, away from the room, yet no one touches me. Instead, Angela walks to her office, and begins to start machines and gather paper and pencils, while Cam retreats to her lab and begins extracting various solutions and tools, laying them out before her like her own chorus line. Booth, meanwhile, places his hands on Brennan's shoulders and steers her towards her office and onto her couch, where he tells her in a firm voice to take a nap while she waits for everyone else to have their turn with my remains. She argues half-heartedly about the paperwork she needs to complete, and the other work she has to do, but by the time Booth has finished arranging the pillows on the couch, and covering her with a blanket, she is already fast asleep. He looks down at her for a long time, watching her doze in her light sleep, her face relaxed and peaceful. A small smile creeps to his features, as his eyes sparkle with something I determine to be adoration—and, dare I say it, love. He doesn't look at her with eyes that speak of partnership, or even friendship, but in a way that a man looks at the woman he loves. It is the same look my father gives my mother, and the same look I too received what I'm sure is not too long ago from the man I loved, although it seems to me ages ago now.

Hodgins arrives back at the Jeffersonian, eager to run his samples through the machines to determine if there is any significance to what he discovered. On the way he bumps into Angela and the two stop and stare at the other, breaths catching in their throats, each wanting to say something—everything to the other, but not knowing where to start. The minutes seem to crawl by, until they realize today isn't the day, and they don't have the courage to say what they need to. They each clear their throat, and compose themselves, ready to walk away and back to work when they share the awkward exchange of two people mumbling about where they need to be and what they need to do. Hodgins moves to his left and Angela moves to her right, and the two again meet face to face, hurriedly they each step in the opposite direction they had before and again end up blocking each other in the narrow passage. After one more attempt, Angela reaches out and grabs Hodgins by the arms, and physically shifts him to the left. His blue eyes bulge at the contact as he stares at her hands on his arms, and Angela can all but manage a small smile as she leaves her hands on him, unable to bring herself to break the contact. Finally, after Cam walks up behind Hodgins, asking Angela about her progress on identifying the victim, the moment is broken, and the two separate as if ablaze, Hodgins all but running in the opposite direction. It's obvious to me that these two have a torrid history that isn't nearly as over as they'd like to pretend. I make a mental note to myself to watch those two more carefully in the future, as I leave the Jeffersonian to check on my parents on the last night of their cruise.

My dad and mom are packing their bags in their cabin, each chatting animatedly as they recall some of the more colorful adventures on their vacation. They talk about the people they saw and the food they ate, and the places they visited, and their eyes glow with excitement as they gently pack their souvenirs on the top of their luggage. My father places books in his, and colorful photos of the places they visited, while my mother packs clothing and small mementos in her bag. When her bag looks like it can't possibly hold any more she looks around to check that she hasn't forgotten anything around the room, save the pile of clothes folded neatly on a chair I imagine she intends to wear home tomorrow. Then, she places the last two items in her suitcase. The first is delicately wrapped in tissue paper, and as she opens it up to look at it one last time, her eyes glowing with pride as she gazes upon the most beautiful necklace I've ever seen. My heart aches as I fight back tears—it's obviously a gift for me, probably worth nearly half as much as the cruise itself. The second item she puts in her suitcase is a framed picture of me. She looks at it for a few more seconds, kisses her finger and places it against my cheek through the glass. She whispers that she misses me, and my father comes up behind her, placing his large hands on her shoulders and reminds her that they'll see me in a couple hours. The tears I've held for too long break through and I cry for what seems like hours, wishing I could protect them from the discovery they'll make in 12 hours time.

**B********NES B********NES B********NES **

By the time I finally calm myself I turn my attention back to the gang at the Jeffersonian. Angela had apparently been working for hours in her lab to program numbers and calculations into her computer. I'm not quite sure what she was trying to achieve, but she surely knows what she is doing as she works with swift efficiency. Eventually, she seems satisfied, as she stands, stretches, and leaves her office. She first walks to Cam's office, raps twice on the door and waits patiently as Cam emerges from behind her table and asks "Ready?" Angela merely nods and keeps walking as Cam puts her equipment away and prepares to head to Angela's lab. Angela's next stop is to see Hodgins, and she clearly hesitates as she stands outside his door, then after taking a deep breath puts a smile on her face and pops her head in to inform him she is finished. Hodgins looks up at her through eyes magnified by his goggles and nods rapidly. "Okay, yeah. Sure." Angela smiles again and walks out of his door headed in the direction of Brennan's office. It becomes pretty clear that Angela feels abundantly more comfortable with Brennan than she does with the others as she strides into the office without so much as a knock to herald her arrival or a moment of hesitation as she enters.

What she sees, however, surprises her, although she knows it shouldn't, and it hardly takes more than a few moments for her to smile as she watches the scene before her. Dr. Brennan is fast asleep on the couch in her office, snuggled between the blanket that was clearly placed over her. Of course, what really makes her day is the presence of Booth, dozing next to her in the chair beside her, his large frame curled into the small chair, his head lolling to the side resting against Brennan's.

The "awwe" escapes Angela's lips before she can stop it, and she regrets it immediately as Booth's eyes shoot open at the noise, first to check on Brennan, then once he's certain she's safe (the small smile on his face as he watches her sleep does not go unnoticed by Angela), to see where the noise is coming from. He sees it's Angela and while his ears redden only slightly, he asks her why she came in whispers so as to not wake the woman sleeping next to him. Angela, almost forgetting why she came in the first place whispers back.

"Did you have a nice nap? You looked pretty cozy," she says with a smirk.

"I wasn't sleeping. I was just resting my eyes as I kept Bones company."

"Booth, Brennan is asleep."

"I didn't say she was keeping me company. Why are you here again?"

"I finished our girl."

"Great, I'll be there in a minute."

"Are you going to wake Brennan?"

"She hasn't gotten a lot of sleep since we took this case. Can't we fill her in later?"

"You know as well as I do she'll want to be there."

"Fine. I'll meet you there."

With that, Angela turns around and walks out of the office, and I get the distinct impression she's fighting the urge to hide behind a potted plant and watch the exchange that follows. If she only knew what I would see, I'm sure she wouldn't hesitate to do so.

Booth stands for a long time, staring down at Brennan, clearly not relishing the idea of waking her up. Even I have to admit it is odd to see so clearly guarded a woman looking so serene and vulnerable. Eventually though, he whispers "Bones" softly. When she doesn't respond he repeats her name louder. When he fails to get a response a second time, Booth reaches out to rock her gently. While the action fails to wake the doctor up, it succeeds in knocking a lock of hair across her face. Sighing, Booth whispers "Temperance" and strokes the hair out of her face, his fingers brushing against her skin. The contact clearly startles Brennan awake as she jolts up with a slight scream, which in turn frightens Booth who screams back, before telling her "It's just me."

Brennan asks him what he's doing, and he instead of telling her how he slept beside her, he decides on a half-truth.

"Angela sent me to wake you up. She's finished the reconstruction, and wants us to meet her in her lab."

"I wasn't asleep. I was just resting my eyes."

"Sure, I know that."

"Okay, let's go."

Running her hands through her messy hair, Brennan struggles to recompose herself, as Booth silently chides himself for startling her, wishing he could have let her continue sleeping.

When the two arrive in the lab together, hair tussled and clothes slightly disheveled, Angela abruptly stops talking, and although Brennan remains oblivious, it's clear to Booth that she was telling the others the position she found the two in. Nevertheless, she announces that now that everyone is present, she can show them the girl.

I watch amazed as before my eyes, a girl appears in 3D. Her face is angular, and nose is small, but her mouth is large and thick. Her cheekbones are high, and her forehead would be large were it not for the long brown hair cascading down around her head and past her long slender neck and wide set shoulders. I realize with a start that I am looking at myself, and that this woman had managed to create my image out of nothing more than some charred flesh and bone. Looking around, I see a few sketches of myself, where my mouth was too large, or my nose too small, and I realize how many hours it must have taken her to construct this.

"She was beautiful." I hear Angela muse to herself, and I can't help but blush with the compliment.

Booth instructs her to check and see if the image correlates to anything in missing persons. I check my watch and realize with a start that it may very well warrant results soon.

**B********NES B********NES B********NES **

The computer has been running for hours, cross referencing the angles of my face to those of others in the database when suddenly it beeps and stops. I see my name across the screen and with it a picture my father took a month ago of me under a tree in our back yard. My life story is on the screen, and it pains me to see I can be so easily summed up as a person with the mention of my date of birth, some distinguishing features, and a short biography that would help someone identify me. The date gone missing is unknown, but the date reported missing is today. At least they won't have to wait long before they know for sure.

The beeping of the computer catches the attention of Booth, and he strides over to the screen, reads over the information quickly, checking to verify the image matches that of Angela's model, and prints it out. He then hurries to find his partner. He sticks his head in her office and calls out to her.

"Bones, let's go. It's time to go speak to the parents of Daphne Tennyson."

**Author's Note: **Hey guys, so three chapters later you finally have a name! Later, when it won't give too much away I'll let you all be impressed by how clever I was in my choice of names, but for now, it may give too much away. Intrigued are you not? It won't hurt to tell you that Tennyson means "storyteller" which should make sense, but until I can tell you more without spoiling the mystery, that's all you get! Review please.


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